Address worries.. Please help a confused old-timer :p (SOLVED)

[oldfaithful]

Hello there. I loaded bitcoin core to a fresh offline machine via usb, copy and pasted my wallet.dat to a few usb sticks and took a note of my address. I then wiped the machine using dban.

I want to just stash some bitcoin in a wallet and hold them till far in the future, I don't need to spend them (10 years or so). I can see that the coins I have sent to the address are showing when I check them on blockchain.info.

Am I right in thinking that I can just keep sending them to this one address indefinitely? I only ask because I've read horror stories about wallets running out of addresses (I've tried to understand it but it's beyond me unfortunately). My questions are summed up below-

1) Is the original address I've been using good indefinitely? (I'm not making any outgoing transactions).

2) Will I be able to restore my wallet using wallet.dat in 10 years or so (or could the ability to restore from wallet.dat go obsolete?)

Many thanks for your time if anyone is kind enough to enlighten me.

[1714146053]

1714146053

[achow101]

Hello there. I loaded bitcoin core to a fresh offline machine via usb, copy and pasted my wallet.dat to a few usb sticks and took a note of my address. I then wiped the machine using dban.

I want to just stash some bitcoin in a wallet and hold them till far in the future, I don't need to spend them (10 years or so). I can see that the coins I have sent to the address are showing when I check them on blockchain.info.

Am I right in thinking that I can just keep sending them to this one address indefinitely? I only ask because I've read horror stories about wallets running out of addresses (I've tried to understand it but it's beyond me unfortunately). My questions are summed up below-

1) Is the original address I've been using good indefinitely? (I'm not making any outgoing transactions).

Yes. Addresses don't expire. So long as you aren't spending Bitcoin from the same wallet, you should be fine.

2) Will I be able to restore my wallet using wallet.dat in 10 years or so (or could the ability to restore from wallet.dat go obsolete?)

Many thanks for your time if anyone is kind enough to enlighten me.

If Bitcoin Core is still around, then you most likely will be able to restore it. If not, you should still be able to get a copy of an older client (by going to a specific tag and building from source if necessary) and dump the private keys for import into a new wallet.

[oldfaithful]

Wow, that was quick. That's exactly what I wanted to know achow, thank you very much indeed for your time. Have a great day!

[DannyHamilton]

1) Is the original address I've been using good indefinitely? (I'm not making any outgoing transactions).

It is good as long as you have exclusive access to the private key.  If you lose the private key (contained in the wallet.dat backups you made), or if someone else gains access to that private key, then the address is no longer good.

However, you may want to consider generating a new address for each transaction, or at least every once in a while. If you use the exact same address every time, then anyone that sends bitcoins to you at that address will be able to determine exactly how many bitcoins you control.  Do you really want to give up that much privacy?  If those bitcoins become extremely valuable in the next 10 years, do you want to risk that?

copy and pasted my wallet.dat to a few usb sticks . . .
2) Will I be able to restore my wallet using wallet.dat in 10 years or so (or could the ability to restore from wallet.dat go obsolete?)

I'd be more concerned about those USB sticks going obsolete in the next 10 years or so.  It would be difficult (though not impossible) to access today data that was stored on a 5.25 inch or 3.5 inch floppy disk in the past. I'd also be concerned about the data in the USB decaying over time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation

Solid-state media, such as EPROMs, flash memory and other solid-state drives, stores data using electrical charges, which can slowly leak away due to imperfect insulation . . . frequently, by the time the user discovers the data decay, the master data may be lost.